Minimal impact from job cuts for Siemens Ireland

UPDATED: Siemens today announced it will be cutting the workforce at its corporate telecoms division SEN by 6,800, with 3,800 jobs to go immediately.

However, of the almost 7,000-strong job cuts, the majority will be from its headquarters in Germany. There is also the possibility that a plant in Brazil will be given up to a partner.

Of the 1,100 Siemens employees here in Ireland, 52 are involved in sales and services and commercial activities in the SEN division. Of these, five people will be impacted upon, said Michael O’Connor, corporate communications manager for Siemens Limited in Ireland.

“Some people will go on early retirement, which may be an attractive option for them and we will also be putting some people from employment contracts into contractor status, all on a voluntary basis. So in terms of actual redundancies, we wouldn’t see an impact here at all,” he said.

The rest of the 7,000 announced redundancies will not be effected until the second half of 2009, Siemens said.

The telecoms firm said the decision to cut two fifths of the workforce from its SEN division was based on its changing business model, which was moving away from hardware to focus on the software and services industry.

The future of the SEN manufacturing division of the company has been uncertain since Siemens Communications joined together with Nokia’s Network Business Group in 2006 to form Nokia Siemens Networks, headquartered alongside Nokia in Finland.

As it changes to a software provider, Siemens said it will close its SEN manufacturing operations.

“In Germany, plans call for the SEN plant in Leipzig, which currently has about 530 employees, and the telecommunications cable business, with some 60 employees, to be sold or funnelled into solutions involving a third party.

“In addition, SEN is seeking a partnership with an IT provider for around 570 employees involved in direct sales to customers for small- and mid-sized systems,” Siemens CFO, Joe Kaeser said.